NEW YORK, Sporting Alert – As expected, defending national champion Ohio State has been selected as the preseason No. 1 college football team in the USA Today Coaches Poll, released on Thursday.
The Buckeyes, who advanced through the first ever college football playoffs last year to secure the national title, will start the news season as the ones to beat, after returning a good chunk of the squad from the last term.
Ohio State, which collected 62 first place votes, will start as the preseason top side for the first time since 2006.
TCU, which impressed during the last campaign, will start the preseason as the No. 2 team – the highest preseason ranking for the club, while equalling the program’s all-time best ranking.
Completing the top five are Alabama, at No. 3, Baylor, at No. 4 and Oregon, which starts preseason at No. 5.
Two Big 12 teams are selected in the top five and debate will certainly get going about which team should have been higher, with the Horn Frogs starting ahead of the Bears.
The top 10 programs in the rankings are Michigan State, Auburn, Florida State, Georgia and USC, as three Southeastern Conference teams are ranked in the top 10 and eight in total named in the preseason Top 25.
The other SEC teams in the rankings are as follows; LSU (13th), Mississippi (15th), Arkansas (20th), Missouri (23rd) and Tennessee (25th).
In the midst of that, Notre Dame are ranked 11th, Clemson (12), UCLA (14), Ole Miss (16), Arizona State (17), Wisconsin (18), Oklahoma (19).
Stanford is at 21, Arizona, at 22 and Boise State, 25, are also in the top 25.
RANK TEAM RECORD
1 Ohio State 14-1
2 TCU 12-1
3 Alabama 12-2
4 Baylor 11-2
5 Oregon 13-2
6 Michigan State 11-2
7 Auburn 8-5
8 Florida State 13-1
9 Georgia 10-3
10 USC 9-4
11 Notre Dame 8-5
12 Clemson 10-3
13 LSU 8-5
14 UCLA 10-3
15 Ole Miss 9-4
16 Arizona State 10-3
17 Georgia Tech 11-3
18 Wisconsin 11-3
19 Oklahoma 8-5
20 Arkansas 7-6
21 Stanford 8-5
22 Arizona 10-4
23 Missouri 11-3
24 Boise State 12-2
25 Tennessee 7-6
Leave a Reply